Meet the 31-year-old who mentors the CEO of a $44 billion company

Every year, a wide-eyed class of analysts and associates start
their graduate and post-graduate programs with goals to change
the world (or at least make a lot of money).

They get paired with a mentor, usually a senior executive, who
can show them the ropes at the firm.

BNY Mellon, however, does things a little differently. Three
years ago, it piloted a program called "reverse mentoring."

Darah Kirstein, an employee at the company, was asked to mentor a
senior executive of the firm. Not just any senior executive
though — the then 28-year-old was asked to mentor Gerald Hassell,
the CEO of the $44 billion company.

"It was a little intimidating," she said. "At the time, 1 Wall
Street was our headquarters, which is a very historical building.
Bank of New York is also a very historical bank, and here I am
walking into the CEO's office."

Kirstein graduated from Penn State with a degree in information
sciences and technology and took her first job at BNY Mellon in
the technology leadership program, a rotational program with
exposure to different areas of the business.

Kirstein and Hassell meet once a quarter, either in person when
she is in New York or via Skype when she is in Pittsburgh, where
she is based.

The
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. building at 1 Wall St. is seen in
New York's financial district.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Hassell has a "Darah list" and often uses the millennial as a
sounding board for ideas. He wanted to downsize the bank's
real-estate footprint and asked her opinion on desk sharing. He
wanted to know where people her age were investing, how they were
investing, and how the next generation consumes information.

One of the biggest challenges for Kirstein was not knowing in
advance what questions Hassell would ask.

Her father and sister are engineers, and an aptitude for
technology runs in the family. Trips to CompUSA were like field
trips for Kirstein, and she remembers growing up tinkering with
things, pressing buttons, and trying to figure out how they
worked. "That's where a lot of my confidence came from," she
said.

Hassell pioneered the program. He specifically wanted a program
geared toward mentoring senior executives about technology.

The bank's chief information officer, Suresh Kumar, selected
several employees from the firm's technology leadership program
for a one-year pilot. Kirstein missed the first meeting among the
mentors to assign the mentees, and, as luck would have it, she
was paired with the CEO.

That was three years ago. While other relationships have fallen
by the wayside, Kirstein and Hassell's relationship has evolved.

Suresh Kumar, chief information officer at BNY
Mellon.BNY
Mellon

Nine years with the company later, Kirstein felt that she hit a
crossroads in her career. She had been working part-time after
her second child was born and was debating whether to come back
to the company full-time.

She liked spending time with her family, but said she didn't want
to go down the "mommy track." She emailed Hassell
in December to schedule a meeting for career advice, and he
responded, "It was about time I helped with you something."

The CEO blocked out an hour and a half out of his schedule to
discuss Kirstein's short-term and long-term career objectives and
the path she should take.

"It has always been a two-way street," she said. "Every time I
step into this office, I learn something. He is a very curious
person. A lot of our conversations would be begin with, 'So tell
me about ...'"

Kirstein has since returned to the bank full-time and remains
positive about her experience. She said she believe that
social media has given millennials very high and unrealistic
expectations of their future career paths, and so "they
constantly bounce around, trying to land that dream job."

"The reality is," Kirstein said, "really cool opportunities can
exist just where we are."